Confinement induced control of similarity solutions in premelting dynamics and other thin film problems

We study the combined effects of nonlocal elasticity and confinement induced ordering on the dynamics of thermomolecular pressure gradient driven premelted films bound by an elastic membrane. The confinement induced ordering is modeled using a film thickness dependent viscosity. When there is no confinement induced ordering, we recover the similarity solution for the evolution of the elastic membrane, which exhibits an infinite sequence of oscillations. However, when the confinement induced viscosity is comparable to the bulk viscosity, the numerical solutions of the full system reveal the conditions under which the oscillations and similarity solutions vanish. Implications of our results for general thermomechanical dynamics, frost heave observations and cryogenic cell preservation are discussed. Finally, through its influence on the viscosity, the confinement effect implicitly introduces a new universal length scale into the volume flux. Thus, there are a host of thin film problems, from droplet breakup to wetting/dewetting dynamics, whose properties (similarity solutions, regularization, and compact support) will change under the action of the confinement effect. Therefore, our study suggests revisiting the mathematical structure and experimental implications of a wide range of problems within the framework of the confinement effect.Comment: 18 Pages, 12 Figure

Radial Distribution Function for Semiflexible Polymers Confined in Microchannels

An analytic expression is derived for the distribution $G(\vec{R})$ of the end-to-end distance $\vec{R}$ of semiflexible polymers in external potentials to elucidate the effect of confinement on the mechanical and statistical properties of biomolecules. For parabolic confinement the result is exact whereas for realistic potentials a self-consistent ansatz is developed, so that $G(\vec{R})$ is given explicitly even for hard wall confinement. The theoretical result is in excellent quantitative agreement with fluorescence microscopy data for actin filaments confined in rectangularly shaped microchannels. This allows an unambiguous determination of persistence length $L_P$ and the dependence of statistical properties such as Odijk's deflection length $\lambda$ on the channel width $D$. It is shown that neglecting the effect of confinement leads to a significant overestimation of bending rigidities for filaments

Confinement of matter fields in compact (2+1)-dimensional QED theory of high-TcT_{c} superconductors

We study confinement of matter fields in the effective compact (2+1)-dimensional QED theory of high-$T_{c}$ superconductors. It is shown that the monopole configurations do not affect the propagator of gauge potential $a_{\mu}$. Based on this result, we found that: chiral symmetry breaking and confinement take place simultaneously in the antiferromagnetic state; neither monopole effect nor Anderson-Higgs mechanism can cause confinement in the d-wave superconducting state.Comment: 5 pages, no figure

Confinement induced by fermion damping in three-dimensional QED

The three-dimensional non-compact QED is known to exhibit weak confinement when fermions acquire a finite mass via the mechanism of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking. In this paper, we study the effect of fermion damping caused by elastic scattering on the classical potential between fermions. By calculating the vacuum polarization function that incorporates the fermion damping effect, we show that fermion damping can induce a weak confinement even when the fermions are massless and the chiral symmetry is not broken.Comment: 4 pages, no figur

A model for melting of confined DNA

When DNA molecules are heated they denature. This occurs locally so that loops of molten single DNA strands form, connected by intact double-stranded DNA pieces. The properties of this "melting" transition have been intensively investigated. Recently there has been a surge of interest in this question, caused by experiments determining the properties of partially bound DNA confined to nanochannels. But how does such confinement affect the melting transition? To answer this question we introduce, and solve a model predicting how confinement affects the melting transition for a simple model system by first disregarding the effect of self-avoidance. We find that the transition is smoother for narrower channels. By means of Monte-Carlo simulations we then show that a model incorporating self-avoidance shows qualitatively the same behaviour and that the effect of confinement is stronger than in the ideal case.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, supplementary materia

Possible retardation effects of quark confinement on the meson spectrum

The reduced Bethe-Salpeter equation with scalar confinement and vector gluon exchange is applied to quark-antiquark bound states. The so called intrinsic flaw of Salpeter equation with static scalar confinement is investigated. The notorious problem of narrow level spacings is found to be remedied by taking into consideration the retardation effect of scalar confinement. Good fit for the mass spectrum of both heavy and light quarkomium states is then obtained.Comment: 14 pages in LaTex for